


hospital bed

by worry



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Love, M/M, POV Alternating, Suicide Attempt, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 21:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12067149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: The distress call moves the TARDIS on its own, the distress call pushes him to his knees and makes him heel in the dusk.The display reads ENGLAND, 28 JAN, 1983. He knows immediately, an arrow in the skin, a cloth-covered face. He knows immediately. It is a feeling from long ago.[Before the events of Mawdryn Undead, Turlough is saved by a man who seems to be slowly, slowly unraveling.]





	hospital bed

**Author's Note:**

> So this is set a few days before the events of Mawdryn Undead. I'm not sure where this fits into Twelve's timeline, but. I got an idea and absolutely had to write it.
> 
> While this fic is named after [ this song,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8We0FVflGaU) I highly recommend listening to [ this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZLzUhAj6A0) while reading, as it fits more.

**0.**

 

_The distress call seems to pulse more intensely than the others, as if the TARDIS wants it to shake him, pull him down into the groundcore of earth and the solar system and every planet and whatever composes space, down through every layer of every holdable thing, and show him the Truth. What is the truth? The TARDIS knows, she does. What is the truth? The distress call shakes the Doctor’s body, changing a life from sour and copper to sweet and righteous, the distress call moves the TARDIS on its own, the distress call pushes him to his knees and makes him heel in the dusk._

 

_The display reads ENGLAND, 29 JAN, 1983. He knows immediately, an arrow in the skin, a cloth-covered face. He knows immediately. It is a feeling from long ago._

  


**i.**

 

It is not a particularly hard decision to make; of course his body is a weapon, mind as the blade sharp, limbs as the hilt, sick old insides as obstacles, only making his body heavier. He only exists to be a holdable thing, a brandished sword, something to be used and used and bloodied and bloodied and washed and used again, a recycle of the mind, an exploitation of every tiny tiny tiny speck that composes him and every big big big porcelain piece that composes him and every holdable thing he has to offer. He does not have much to offer but he’s the perfect weapon—light, easily held, sharp and ruthless and willing, perfectly loose to be manipulated and touched and pushed into new shapes. He is the perfect weapon, and ending his life is not a hard decision to make.

 

There are limited options in this blackhole school. They keep the medicine locked up— _whether or not Earth medicine would work on Turlough is nebulous_ —and most days are heavily scheduled, so he has minimal time to himself. He is never alone here. He will never be alone again.

 

He steals a pair of scissors from his classroom; it will have to do, a weapon not as beautiful or as useful as he is, but it will have to do. This is the only way, of course, to generate true freedom, true escape of the ever-demolishing aftermath that is his mind and body—he is no longer useful, no longer being used and held, how can he continue with an identity forcewrapped around metal? What is he useful for, here on Earth?

 

Turlough locks himself the closet of his dorm room, knows that no one will notice his absence for a very long time. He closes his eyes, prepares—

 

 **ii**.

It is jarring; he hasn’t been here for a very long time, memories of a lost and lost and lost love inside of the school walls, underneath its floors and plastered to its roots. The last time that he was here he fell in love. That, simply, is a fact—yes, he loved Turlough, yes, endlessly deep, yes, truly and purely, yes, perfectly, yes, a love lasting every lifetime after. Yes. Yes, he loved and he loves and will love. Yes. There is a disturbance here, yes. Yes, it is coming from Turlough, undoubtedly, he can feel it twistingmovingpushing inside of him. Yes. Something is very wrong.

 

The TARDIS put him in the bare corner of a dorm room—

 

—Turlough’s dorm room—

 

—and it is strange, _jarring,_ to see his existence in such a way; clothing across his bed, signs of his life carved permanent into the room, shoes thrown on the floor, messy and strewn and so, so very Turlough, so very pitiful, so very shattering.

 

The closet door opens.

 

“Hello,” and his voice is soft, his voice is pitiful and shattered and strewn, he peers one-eyed mythological god-king out of the closet, flitting up and down at the Doctor’s presence, “who are _you?”_

 

Who are you? He had asked that, long ago, first sight of Turlough “lost” and shattered and pitiful in his TARDIS. It has been - many, many lifetimes since then, since the burial of that love, the graveyard of him, the love that is now dirt-fingernails digging itself out of the ground, sprouting and blossoming and molting and blossoming again.

 

It is three days before Turlough meets him for the first time.

 

He feels nauseous.

 

“I’m—”

 

Click.

 

“Wait, what were you doing in there?”

 

The distress call was received for a reason; he should have asked this first, but was too weak, too much of a downfall. Pity.

 

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

 

The Doctor stares at him, feels like a holy being about to fall from its holy status.

 

And then he smiles, wide and beaming. “Of course it’s my business. Everything’s my business. What were you doing?”

 

Turlough opens the closet door slightly further. He remains silent, however, only examines the Doctor and his appearance solemnly.

 

“Come _on._ You can tell me! I’ve seen everything you can imagine and then more. Whatever it is, it’s not going to bother me.”

 

Turlough raises an eyebrow. The Doctor can see him fully now, like a dull pain.

 

“I get it.” He gets it. “You don’t trust me not to - what, tell on you? Report you? I’m not going to do that. I don’t even know this place.” The gestures to the TARDIS. “I came here in this, to help you. Do you need helping?”

 

“You came here in a police box.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How?”

 

“It’s a spaceship.”

 

Turlough walks out of the closet and throws a pair of scissors onto the hard floor, click. Oh. Oh. He was going to — of course he was going to — he tried to do it on the Eternals’ ship, too, _oh._ The Doctor stops, swells and aches, but Turlough continues nonchalant, as if they live in a world where his life doesn’t matter. “A spaceship, hm? Prove it.”

 

_Home. Anywhere you want to go, anywhere in the world, anywhere in time, anywhere in the universe. Home. I can take you home. I can be your home, again. I can fix you, maybe, if I learn how to keep my teeth to myself, this time around. I am dreaming a beautiful picture of you, and I am fixing you, and I am saving you from every trauma and every slice and every wound. There is an arrow in your leg and I pick you up gentle, I pick you up with the soft antithesis of me, and I stitch you up with starthreads. I PULL OUT THE ARROW AND I love the arrow, in the same way that I love you. I pull out the arrow and I kiss you and the kiss wakes you up from eternal sleep and I can love you again. I can take you home. I can fall in love with the sharpness of your being and melt down the gold into something palpable. I can take you home. Please let me be your home. Please let me have more time. I can relive every moment and manipulate time like hot metal but there is never enough t i m e with_

 

_you._

 

_The clock ticks and ticks forward backward every direction and there is never enough time there are so many things to touch and touch and feel and love and melt there are so many small things and there are so many big things and I want to I want to I I I want to I want to I I I love and I I want I_

 

 _to give it all up and just float I want and I want and I want,_ he thinks, _I I want to be_

 

 _with you but there is a di di disparity and I I love and I,_ he thinks, _can tear apart time with my monstrosities but I can never demolish it enough enough to to make make things right and I I I can never er er errr mmake people_

 

_st st stay. No one ev e r stays. I want_

 

_to lllove but there is snever enough tttime to love everyone I want t to love._

 

He holds out his hand. He should not hold out his hand, because it is too inviting, too harmful. Too much to deal with.

 

“Come with me,” he says. Turlough looks at him. Turlough should not look at him. Turlough takes his hand

  


t t t  ouches

 

and pushes the Doctor to his fallingend

 

and they walk together, together, back to the TARDIS.

 

**iii.**

 

Inside it is a whirl of buttons and levers and bright noises; it is also much, much larger than the outside, but that doesn’t bother him; he can get home; he can leave Earth; he can do and be anything he desires; he can; he _can._

 

“What do you think?” he asks, gesturing around the room(?) at the beauty of it, the surrounding, the new chance, the savior. This man is his savior—

 

— but saviors do not exist, so Turlough must do what he was designed for, what he was carved for, what he was perfected for: deceive.

 

“It’s — quite nice.”

 

“Just ‘quite nice’?”

 

“You never told me who you are,” Turlough deflects; he can sense something on this man, something centuriesold and fallen, something destroyed. He looks - destroyed.

 

“I’m the Doctor.”

 

Interesting. “Okay. What’s your name?”

 

“My name _is_ the Doctor.”

 

“Really.”

 

“Yes, _really._ What’s your name?”

 

“Turlough.”

 

“So the name ‘Doctor’ is weird and Turlough isn’t?”

 

He smiles, he really does smile, he really lets his innerself disgust outwards, fold out and out pink. He smiles. We all know that it is a weakness, to smile. To let yourself fall from the safe height and display. To let feelings show.

 

“Funny,” he says, and then: “I still don’t believe you… take me somewhere.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Anywhere.”

 

**iv.**

 

Anywhere.

 

He he he - could take Turlough - anywhere - a a a nywhere that they missed - when they - when they were - t - o - g - e - t - h - e - r - all those lifetimes ago. It has been so very, very long.

 

So

 

lo

o

o

o

n

g,

 

and painful.

 

He considers every moment _birthoftheuniverse endoftheuniverse birthofaplanet birthofastar everythinginalloftimeandplanetsthey’re all so beautifuleverything is beautiful;_ and then sets the coordinates for ancient Olympia

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


and takes Turlough’s hand again oh _no_ after they land. He says, “here you go.” He says, “do you believe me now,” as he if he is something worthy of belief, something worthy of

 

this draining d   d rainin g pow **er.**

 

“Where are we?” he asks. “Looks like we’re still on Earth, but—”

 

“Temple of Zeus. 454 BCE.”

 

“What—we’ve travelled in time?”

 

“We’ve travelled in time,” says the Doctor, _Icouldgiveyouu u u e v e ryth i ng  , for a while ._ “How do you feel about that?”

  
“You—” Turlough starts, and then he looks at the ground, the ground now further sacred, blown blessed with yet another iradicable being.  “Is this real,” he finishes, vulnerable, vul-ner-ah-bull, animal wounded (he takes the arrow out), animal prey (and he loves the arrow and everything spilling out of the wound and thehold _erof_ the wound). “Am I dead.”

 

“Do you want me to be,” the Doctor answers, and the wind is blowing in Turlough’s hair and the younger sun is shining on him, and nothing in the uniiveerssee iis pperrffeecctt bb b bbut, “do you want me to be real, or do you still want to be dead?”

 

“Please don’t take me back to that school.”

  
  


**v.**

 

“Please don’t take me back to that school,” he says, and he says. This Doctor—he does not seem to have ulterior motives, does not want Turlough’s weaponry, doesn’t seem to look at Turlough like Turlough is just

 

a body, but he still cannot be trusted. He can get home. He can take the Doctor’s ship away, and leave him, and go home.

 

“If you don’t want me to, I won’t,” says the Doctor, young sun shining on him, young light shining around him, wind in his hair, flowing his coat back and forth _swish._ He can take the Doctor’s ship away, and leave him, and go home. He does look at home in ancient Greece, he does look at home in his ship, he does look strangely strangely strangely at home with Tu—

 

He will take the Doctor’s ship away, and leave him, and go home—

 

and he wants to—

 

wants—

 

to—

 

they have known each other for a very short amount of time, but, but, but, there are so many questions, there are so many things in the universe vast to see, how did the Doctor _know,_ how did he—

 

how can he treat Turlough like _this_ an unfamilar drowning—

 

and Turlough wants to—

 

he _wants._

 

“Thank you, Doctor,” he replies, stops wanting.

 

He looks - fallen, for a moment, lost, until he turns back into his usual exterior, whatever that may be. He looks fallen, like he has bitten the ground and sacrificed in this temple and fallen from upthere. “Why are you thanking me? Don’t thank me. Don’t do that. You obviously _hated_ it there, of course I wasn’t going to send you back.” He gestures to his ship. “The good thing about having a time machine? No one will notice you’re gone.”

 

 _No one would have noticed if I had stayed,_ he thinks, _if I had gone through with it, if you hadn’t saved me._ It’s true - the Doctor did save him. The Doctor _did._ The Doctor can do so many things, like travel in time and save people who do not deserve to be saved.

 

Turlough says nothing.

 

**vi.**

 

“Do you want to stay,” the Doctor says, words rough and gravelsharp, _like_ cut knees _like_ ripping out heart(s), “for a while? Or go somewhere else? I think Greece is pretty nice. Calm, all that. But it’s up to _you,_ Turlough. Take me,” he coughs, and feels every love tide inside of him and regurgitate from his mouth, “on an adventure.”

 

TAKE ME ON AN ADVENTURE, he thinks, but louder, booming, _boom boom boom._ His mind pounding like the movement of body organs. So many bodies and so many organsand so many pieces of him insideandout thatcan be touched if he tries hard enough

 

Turlough is goldplated on the inside but

 

armored entirely but

 

but

 

he did it once, that long time ago, that patch-up, he can

  
  
  
  
  
  


do it again.

 

“Let’s… stay,” Turlough tells him. “For a little while. I always loved history.” His mouth does something like a smile what he is capable of a smile and he

 

starts walking away from the TARDIS. Are you coming. “You coming?” Another smile       ,

 

and it un

 

        r

                   a

v

         e

                                  l

   s

 

him.

 

He runs a hand through his (storm) (gray) (centuriesold) hair. Bites his lip, mostrosity. Ohhhhhhhh his talons are coming out, ohhhhhhh oh. He wants to grab on and fly away - and wants to fly away - and fall from the sky - he wants to Save Turlough, his bones and every skin, intact. He wants to save and help everything in the universe _because he_ has a weakness for caring and he wants to make everything o _kay,_ so it is not just him. It is everyone he has travelled with; _claraclaradonnadonnamarthamarthaadricadricroseroseamyrorypericharleyloveloveloveeejamiezoefitzlooooveboomboomboomb!oomnyssateganace._ It is always repeating, always a neverend, there is always more to uncover and heal.

 

There

 

are some people that cannot be saved. He would not save Davros, he would not save the wicked, the causeofpains. But Turlough is salvageable, we know this, he knows this, and _I never wanted the agreement in the first place give me the Doctor enlightenment is the choice you have failed me destroy him Turlough chose him oh and it was difficult e n li ght en ment forever and ever but Turlough_

 

_chose_

 

 _him, so._ He can be saved.

 

Turlough can save himself.

 

He follows; _yes, he is, he will follow._

  


* * *

* * *

 

**vii.**

 

“I’m tired,” he says, “is there somewhere I can sleep?”

 

The Doctor points to the hallway, arm visibly trying its best to be steady. “Any room down that hall. Well. Not _any_ room. Just open doors until you find one with a bed and be careful.”

 

He walks. No other words. If this ship eats him, he will fade, but. He does not want to fade. He does not want to be eaten. This ship could be endless. He. Could walk forever. Spend forever here, where time does not exist and forevers exist without existing. He will take the Doctor’s ship away, and leave him, and go home. He will go home. He will steal this ship, and run away. That is the ultimate, the white light, the forefront of the future. He can go anywhere with the Doctor, and yet

 

he chooses home.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Turlough finds a bed, eventually, after so many doors - _so many doors and sights and he could go on forever, can you age here -_ and sits down, rubs his face. He feels safe enough, to fall asleep.

  


**viii.**

 

He - downfall - rainfall - starfall - he. Turlough comes in and saves himself. Turlough saves Turlough and Turlough saves the Doctor and the Doctor beartraps them together in the TARDIS for every eternity. It is a bit sel-fish. What was he supposed to       do? Let Turlough perish in his closet?

 

He doesn’t die. If he had died, they would never have met, in the before, in the first place. In the first place. Which means obviously that he was meant for this that the TARDIS took him here for a reason that they can have a second chance a longer chance a second world a second love. He was destined to save Turlough in Turlough’s closet in Turlough’s dorm room, in Turlough’s school, in England, 1983. Nine teen eighty three. So many things happen in the nineteen eighties but Turlough happens in the nineteen eighties so the decade is a bright decade, a decade that walks toward him with open arrrms.

 

Right now Turlough is sleeping in the TARDIS (with) (him) just like old times. His younger self will fall in love with Turlough when——————————

 

when this is over.

 

Oh. He hadn’t considered the ending.

 

He always considers the ending.  

 

So everything ends and this will too—Turlough obviously did not know him when they met—so it ends—everything ends—and he will fall in love over and over because it is a cycle, cy-cl-e. Is this real—is he dead—is he dreaming—is this an extended fantasy, folding in and in and in and!in? Well, is it?

 

Is it?

  


* * *

* * *

 

 

**ix.**

 

The Doctor takes him to - many planets. Beautiful. Planets. Places he has never been, things that he has never seen. The universe can be a beautiful place when you are with someone that you lo—

 

NO,

it is not a beautiful place, and he does not _NO_ does not love! Love. Weakness. Love = weakness so Turlough does not = weakness = does not love. Simple.

 

But the Doctor does make him - feel, things. Unknown! He feels a mystery, feels strange around the Doctor _like_ what could be love if he wasn’t Turlough. A planet, they walk through a forest and all of the trees are earthgum pink. Another planet, and this time the sky is bright green & Turlough watches the Doctor and the Doctor explains why the sky is bright green and why the trees are bubble g um and

 

is it foolish, to pretend that he does not. Love. It is natural for most species; love. It , of course , is ,, a weakness, but Turlough is a. Coward. Only exists to be used and used and washed and used again. When he cannot be used he is bright green skies . When he is not being manipulated and pushed he’s discarded metal, he turns malleable, soft, ready-to-be molded. When he is not feeling Trauma like the birth of these planets on his skin he is nothing but the Doctor makes him something, see. He does not have to steal the TARDIS and he does not have to leave the Doctor and he is _something._ It is too much to say that he is something beautiful. He is, simply, _something._

.

 

So: maybe: he is not: a weapon.??maybe. Maybe: he can be: something solid and recoverable. Maybe: he is: something worthy, even only: slightly. Maybe he is worth: saving. Maybe? He is worth saving. Maybe he is worth saving.

 

**x.**

  


He takes Turlough to a cliff over an ocean and he loves Turlough, he does, he l!o!v!e!s and is in love again and well DID he ever really

 

⊹✧STOP✧⊹　  

 

loving? Turlough, “that is”. Did he. Did he ever st_p l_ving Turl_ugh? Did he? Did he? Did he? Did he? Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?  Did he?

Did he?

Did he?

Did he?

Did he?

Did he?

Did he?

 

Did he?

 

D.

  


He takes Turlough to a cliff over an ocean, a beautiful ocean that is not as beautiful as Turlough is, not as beautiful as they are together, but quite close, quite on the edge. Very, very close to the beauty of them.

 

“I feel so calm here,” Turlough says, and stares at him, feet dangling off the edge. He seems to care now, about being alive. He seems to _want_ it. He looks at the Doctor like the Doctor makes him long for survival - for _life,_ the deepest sense of survival. He treats the Doctor like the Doctor makes him want to live, to regret ever trying to find endings.

 

“That’s… good,” he says in response. They’ve been travelling together for “months” now and this is the first time that Turlough has expressed _fondness._ “I do, too.”

 

“I feel calm with you,” Tur—lough—

 

_I feel calm with you you you enlightenm e n t I would do_

 

 _anyth i N G for , you, to enlighten m e ._ He wants Turlough to enlighten him

 

f!x h!m

 

like an elightenment diamond like a choice like calm like like like. Like love. Like oh. Oh. Like he is falling slowly slo w ly f all i n

 

g

 

and driftiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

 

a

w

a

  
  


y

 

because Turlough is calm with him and he is safeand he feels like everything in him is going to fall out like bad stitching like big gaping holes like he can’t keep all of his love in a cage or a ja r inside of him he can’t keep it all in and Turlough is calm with him and. Oh, he loves Turlough. He loves Turlough, again, and never stopped. He never did stop, that is the answer to everythings. Everything that he has wondered since they ended and after they ended and before they met, even, Turlough being the answer and

 

he is only a speck in the Doctor’s lifelives only temporary but his impact is like a fatal wound, is like a scar beautiful, beautiful markings on the Doctor’s skin on the Doctor’s hearts that are littered with the carved names of everyone he has ever!!!loved!!! on every piece of musclegold. His hearts are both mortal and gold.

 

 **Anywaysss s s .** He doesn’t know what to say back, so he stares down at the ocean, and every lifeform within it. Every beautiful piece of life.

 

But Turlough has to do it again. He has to say, “I’ve learned a lot from you, Doctor.”

 

“What have you learned?” he replies, the Doctor now drowning with the life underwater. Oh oh oh oh.

 

“I don’t know how to describe it.”

 

“Ah, they never do.”

 

“I don’t really want this to end,” Turlough says. “How many people… did you travel with… before me?”

 

There is an underlying question: _am I special?_ Yes. Oh oh oh oh. Yes. It is easy to make him love but it is strikehard to make him _love,_ emphasis. He loves but doesn’t _love._

 

And endings—

 

they—

 

everything does e n d  , , , and here Turlough is talking about endings and the inevitable. They both know that it is inevitable. The Doctor’s love is dangerous. The Doctor’s love starts

 

and

  
  
  
  
  


ends

  
  
  
  


wars, and makes him do things like go to the afterlife and rewrite time and defy death. His love is dangerous. He knows what

 

has to be done, now, suddenly, and the sun isbeat i ng down on hmi and he e wants i t to be e foreve, r too, he wants nd he can see forev er in hsi eyes and on the TARDIS screens and walk on the floorground of fore v e r  r but he wantS Turlough with him he wants this to neverend neverland. This is a second    c hanc e  e

 

and he know s  S  S What he has!!!!!!!!! to DO. He must put an end to forever. He must put an end to the endless. He

 

has to swallow his love back down back down back d

 

o

 

w

 

n

 

into his body and its pockets andhe has to save Turlough, the only way that he knows how:

 

he

 

“What are you doing _oh_ —”

 

_oh_

 

the breeze is against his face and his skin and biting and it feels so ! calm

 

he

 

pulls Turlough closer , to hide his tears, throw his sadness into the ocean below, to

 

and he

 

it has been so long, since has felt this; Turlough against him, lips and softness and LOVE . spilling . out of him

 

he

 

is hungry, but gentle, he grabs and Turlough grabs back and oh this should be perfect this should be everything this should be forever this should be forever this should be foreve

 

but everything must end, and time cannot be rewritten. Meeting Turlough is fixed—it must always happen and in   l i f   e there are no

 

second!

 

chances!

 

(Why would the TARDIS send him to Turlough—)

 

He deepens the kiss he

 

doesn’t say I love you but he thinks it, becomes it,

 

(—why was he sent here again—)

 

says, instead, in transplant of love, “I am so sorry, I’m sorry,”

 

(—it is only painful, the upperbeings should know that—)

 

(—the TARDIS should know that—)

 

“I’m”

 

(if he stays any longer the love will become un bear able and he will be too attached to let! go! he will be too buried in the dirt of love so it

 

has to be now. It has to be now.)

 

“so”

 

(—why—)

 

“sorry, Turlough.”

 

(—WHY—)

 

“Why are you sorry? I lo—”

 

He presses his hands to Turlough’s forehead.

 

**xi.**

  


There are footsteps, outside of Turlough’s dorm room.

 

The Doctor watches from inside of the TARDIS, runs over every minute in his mind, so much beauty lost to energy, to the rules of time, to his pitiful, shattered mind. Every moment they spent together, roots in a garden, growing underneath the ground. Time is cold and unforgiving; he feels it burn on every part of his body that Turlough touched, mourns Turlough at Turlough’s grave at Turlough’s body on his bed, sleeping.

 

In the morning, Turlough will wake up and remember nothing, mind blank in time, memories buried six feet next to the Doctor’s cold body.

 

The Doctor closes his eyes, leaves, dematerializes the TARDIS. He says, “take me anywhere,” and falls sick to his knees.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> But something kept me standing  
> By that hospital bed  
> I should have quit but instead  
> I took care of you  
> You made me sleep all uneven  
> And I didn't believe them  
> When they told me that there  
> Was no saving you" - Kettering, The Antlers
> 
>  
> 
> Oh man. This fic... wow. It is one of my absolute favorite things I have written ever, like EVER, and I am so, so proud of it.
> 
> So, what I tried to convey here in the alternating POV style is that the Doctor's world is slowly getting more and more incomprehensible the longer he stays with Turlough - because his past and knowledge of him _hurts_ , because now he's getting a second chance to love Turlough but knows, ultimately, it will not last, and that would be terrifying and painful to anyone, but especially, especially the Doctor, considering his life. In contrast, Turlough's world slowly gets clearer and clearer, because the Doctor is showing him that he is good and worthy and so much more than a weapon and Turlough is slowly learning to trust and let go. I cried while writing most of it. This fic means a lot to me.
> 
> Please, let me know what you think in the comments section! All comments and kudos _very_ appreciated. ;)


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